Irla lost her sister in a school bus drama in 2012: ‘All of a sudden my whole childhood was gone’

“The lack remains. That will be just as bad next year as it is now,” says Irla Daris (26) from Vessem in Brabant.

However, tomorrow will be different. It is exactly ten years after the bus accident in Switzerland that took the life of her 11-year-old sister Roma. “I still dream about her regularly. Then I hug her and she is still with me a bit,” Irla told Broadcasting Brabant.

In the evening of 13 March 2012, a Belgian bus with students collided with a concrete wall of an emergency niche in the tunnel near Sierre. The bus was on its way back from a skiing holiday. 28 people were killed: 22 children, the two drivers and four escorts. Of the ten Dutch children on board, six did not survive, including Roma Daris from Bergeijk. The cause of the accident has never been fully determined, although there are doubts about the state of mind of the driver who was behind the wheel. He was taking an antidepressant.

Irla especially remembers her last moment with Roma, when she and the whole family put her on the bus for the ski holiday. “Then you don’t think about it being the last time. You give each other a hug, wave each other off and you know: she is going to have a super nice holiday. And then suddenly she doesn’t come home anymore.”

That doesn’t happen to us

The first images of the bus accident on the television news are burned into her retina. “I thought: that is not possible. Our Roma are not dead. That will not happen to us,” she says. Irla’s parents flew to Switzerland for more information, she stayed at home with her other sister and brother. Moments later, the news came that Roma was one of the victims. “I was 16 at the time. All of my childhood was gone in one go.”

She and her sister used to have one common dream: “We wanted to buy a motorhome together and travel around with our friends. Unfortunately, that never happened.”

special corner

Irla has taken up her life again. Coincidence or not: she is now co-owner of a motorhome camping site in Vessem. She recently opened a brand new terrace there with her in-laws, with a special corner for her sister. “I put a photo of her there because she belongs there. She hasn’t been given a lot of things anymore. She never got to know my boyfriend. She didn’t realize that I moved to Vessem, that I am co-owner here. I think that’s very spicy.”

Irla asks herself aloud: ‘What would she have done now and what would she have looked like now? I’m still very sad about it. The lack remains. Nothing in the world can replace Roma.”

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